Upsoaring wings: In favour with the stars

We’re honoring Will Shakespeare today—since it’s presumed that this was his birthday in 1564. (We don’t know for certain, but he was baptized on the 26^th, and as he died on 23 April 1616, why not just split the difference and call it a thing?)

I have to say that Will spends right much time in his sonnets talking about the ravages of age; after a while a body can get a little tired of it. So I’ve chosen “Sonnet XXV”, which takes a different approach to life. The toffs, he says, may have the blessings of fortune (both luck and riches), but what they hold is more mutable than the wealth of love.

“Sonnet XXV”

Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars

Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.

Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread

But as the marigold at the sun's eye,

And in themselves their pride lies buried,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foiled,

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:

Then happy I, that love and am beloved,

  Where I may not remove nor be removed.